My melee necro's progressing into endgame content, yet these things still kill me more or less instantly. It very quickly becomes a situation where I have to save and exit to retrieve my body. What's the secret there?

@Daimoth wrote:Oh, old school thorns. I thought that graphic had been reappropriated along with everything else.

Well, I'll have to change my build pretty substantially to work in a ranged skill. Any recommendations?

I'm pretty sure they're the mobs I hate the most in the game. However, would you really change your build just for Ancients Way? I wouldn't not even for Nihlatak (there are razor furs there too, the WORST of mxl mobs are at nihlatak's)

You should just ignore them. I remember I did nihlatak for a couple of times, so what I did was just run as fast as I can until the last room (iirc there are no razor furs in last room). Just run by them, use blink/teleport if you can.